


Sense

by SQ (proteinscollide)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-13
Updated: 2005-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixth year, and Hermione returns from holidays with a difference that Ron just can't quite figure out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense

**Author's Note:**

> For Chara.
> 
> Prompt: Ron/Hermione, sweet first kiss, 6th year, on Hogwarts grounds.

The first time, Ron thinks he must have imagined it, unlikely as it is. Third night back at Hogwarts, and already Hermione is head first into studying, and with texts not even on their required reading lists for this year. Ron and Harry choose to sit by the fire and play chess instead, carry on the casual conversation with other Gryffindors, avoid all talk of what they did over the holidays. Just as Ron places Harry’s king in check for the first time, his bishop issuing a smug ‘Ha!’, Hermione brushes past him to get some more books from upstairs, and something sweet and sharp wafts past his nose, his senses. It stops him completely, a puzzled look crossing his face, and it isn’t until Harry says loudly, “Ron? It’s your move, mate” that he comes back to himself with a snap, staring at the chessboard, the space between that and his knees where Hermione walked close by him smelling of some lovely scent. Ron goes on to lose, to Harry of all people, in completely spectacular fashion, and it doesn’t even make the top three things on his mind that night.

Hermione hasn’t come back from holidays looking any different. She isn’t playing with her hair; not for her the daily, even hourly, changes that a lot of the other girls in their year are beginning to favour - up, down, all around, it all looks the same really to most of the boys, save the ones already infatuated. She hasn’t changed her dress; Hermione doesn’t bother tucking up the waist of her skirt to inch its hemline higher on her pale legs, or enchanting small patterns to wind around the cuffs of her shirts – and the boys only know these tricks because other girls giggle endlessly about them before and after and even during class. She isn’t anything but the same person he’s known for these past six years - occasionally infuriating, utterly clever – in short, the one girl he knows inside out, his only girl friend, Hermione.

But now she’s a girl who has a perfume around her that he can’t help but notice. He even finds excuses to make all his paths travel around her, to check that each time that it is her he smells, marking her presence. It is, and everything about it disturbs him. He’s already assigned recognition of certain smells to certain people in his life. His mum smells like an English garden. In an old witch’s house years ago, before even Percy was born, Arthur found a Muggle spritzer of a deeply musky rose scent that he pocketed it with only a twinge of guilt, and Molly has worn it since, the bottle refilled every so often, shop assistants in Harrods often remarking on certain afternoons about the funny, rather bemused, middle-aged man stumbling through another purchase at the cosmetic counters. Harry is grass after Quidditch practice, chocolate just before bedtime on weekends, pen ink in the library. Ginny smells like milk, warm and sweet, and has been since he stood on unsteady legs and peered through the bars of the Weasley cot, aged two. But Hermione had no associated scent in his mind until now, and it isn’t at all what he would’ve matched her up with, and the mystery this entails is infuriating to Ron. What else doesn’t he know about her; what might he have missed about his friend?

After Christmas, it slides into a mild Spring, the grass growing wild on the slips and dips around the castle grounds. Many of the students take to the outdoors in good weather, and even Hermione smiles and gathers some notes to take with her, sitting under the shadiest tree she can find. Ron is caught between plenty of opportunities for Quidditch matches practice and informal, or learning how to play football from a frustrated but determined Dean, or Hermione, usually alone with her head over another parchment, another essay on rare spells, things that might save their lives, that seem so unreal in these days of sunshine. Yet each day, Ron finds himself eventually pulled to her side, even as the other boys form ragged teams to play hard and fast games of whatever takes their fancy. He can’t help it.

“What are you doing here?” she finally asks one day, not unkindly.

“Nothing,” Ron is quick to answer. “I’m just don’t feel like - ”

“You don’t feel like a Quidditch match?” Hermione says, taken aback “That’s, well.”

Ron lies on his side next to her, propped up on one elbow, and idly twists a blade of grass in his fingers, avoiding her gaze. He’s sure Hermione is too smart, and she’d read the real reason in his eyes if he gave her the chance. But he’s aware of when she looks away, back to the page; he waits until she’s absorbed in reading once more before he takes the risk, pulling himself up and leaning close, closer, until he can breathe in the perfume of her over one shoulder.

“What _are_ you doing, Ron?” Hermione turns her head suddenly, and then her mouth is right there beside his, about to give voice to the ‘oh’ of her lips.

Ron closes the distance between them as quickly as he can, the burst of courage. First kiss, and he can smell that fresh, sweet scent over everything else. First kiss, and she rests her fingers over the back of his hand, in the grass, and breaks aways with a contented sigh. In the shade, everyone outside in the glare is painful to look at, and Ron’s eyes slide back over, and now Hermione can look right at him and see it written all over his face. Nothing to do with the perfume at all, but it’s everything about Hermione as she has always been that he likes.

“It’s this silly notebook my cousin gave me before school started,” Hermione says suddenly. “Perfumed pages and fairies all over the margins. The paper is lovely to write on though, that’s why I use it, alright?”

“You _knew_ ,” Ron says, a little grumpily. “All along! Why didn’t you just tell me?”

But Hermione just cocks her head to one side, a warm smile for him alone, and as she leans in for another kiss, says simply, “Knew what?”

END


End file.
